British MP wants to rid YouTube of violent videos

When one of your voters gets kicked in the face—on camera—you look for the …

A couple of British politicians are up in arms about online videos of random acts of violence, and want "legal controls" to curb their spread. Yesterday, Commons leader Jack Straw argued for such measures to be added to the Violent Crimes Bill up for discussion next week.

He was responding to Labour representative Iain Wright, who had been shown a YouTube video where one of his constituents was kicked unconscious. "I am concerned that acts of violence and instances of happy-slapping recorded on mobile phones are transferred to the Web for wider consumption," Wright said. "I'm aware that several Hon[orable] Members have found and used the YouTube website," he continued, referring to a YouTube video where his Labour party compatriot Sion Simon spoofed Conservative leader David Cameron's messages.

Banning violent videos from YouTube, which Google bought for $1.65 billion only last week, isn't likely to have an impact on random violence anywere. The whole issue smells of vote-fishing, and it might be a better idea to use those videos to catch happy-slapping punks. That sort of thing has been done before, and can be done again. As long as there are stupid kids, there will be a way to catch them doing stupid stuff.

Wright and Straw's anti-video crusade also smacks of the stateside shenanigans of the Parents Television Council (PTC) that floods the FCC with complaints whenever something it deems objectionable crosses the airwaves. Parental guidance isn't enough for this group, which prefers to get the authorities involved at the first hint of objectionable content. And if Britain passes some sort of law against violent videos published online, how does the government expect to enforce it? Again, it's much ado about nothing, but the British media is lapping it up.